пятница, 10 мая 2019 г.

Men: Hunters or Predators?

While on a date this past weekend with an acquaintance suddenly turned serious dating material, I noticed something very interesting.  We were sitting at a local dive sports bar/dive lounge (I really don’t know any other way to describe this place) chatting, flirting, and just plain ole’ having a good time, when another male patron brushed by me saying the words, “Yeah…you’re hot.” Now, I suppose I should be flattered because I honestly did not think I was looking my best. I mean, I’d run home from work and thrown on the usual date uniform – stilettos, skinnies, accessories, and flirty top – accompanied by a cute bag, of course. I’d had absolutely no time to ‘do up’ my hair into any kind of cute style, but was trying my hardest to look carelessly hot for the man I was out with.
No…I can’t say I was flattered, just mainly surprised that the male patron (who was of a much smaller stature than my date) actually had the balls to say that right in front of him. Lucky for him, my date didn’t hear it.
I thought all was good in the hood…until I ran into Little Man on my way to the bathroom where he asked to “talk for a minute”.  When I’d had enough entertainment, I laughed, shoved him out of my way, and went to the bathroom. Thankfully, my date was waiting for me outside when I was done.
Once we sat down, I took a look around the bar and the crowd and realized that we women are like prey almost anywhere we go.  I know they say that men are hunters, but I’m gonna go ahead and say they’re more like predators.
A cute or pretty girl would walk into the bar, pass a group of guys, or simply get up to move her seat, and 7 out of 10 guys around her would watch her every move. If a young lady walked by on her way to the bar or toward friends, she would have to endure “comments” or have her arm and/or ass grabbed. I mean, is touching really necessary? I think not.
Now a few of the ladies there seemed to enjoy this type of attention. Sad…really.  And as I sat there, drinking from my date’s gin and tonic, I couldn’t help but to wonder if the females who were so desperate for attention are the reason why men hoot and holler at women from across the bar or street, in the grocery store, at the gym, while she’s walking her dog, while she’s minding her own damn business, etc.
Do men think that because acting like a horny lil’ bastard worked on those girls in college, it’ll work on adult females as well?  That’s just ri-damn-diculous.
Note to Men:
If you’re interested in talking to a mature, intelligent female, try speaking to her like she’s a normal human being you’re interested in getting to know and NOT like she’s a piece of meat.

среда, 8 мая 2019 г.

ONCE UPON YOUR DREAMS


The word dream, to me that word sounds heavenly. I think I was born with that word tattooed on my soul. It’s safe to say, like many of you, I am a DREAMER!
Some may say I live my life in the clouds, in this bubble of positive energy. How can one always be that happy? I have been asked. Hello, I do have my upside down days but I try not to let it show. Ok so let’s get back to dreaming, my favorite topic these days. Let me start out by saying I am a huge advocate of chasing your dreams relentlessly. You could say that, that is the motto I have claimed.
Take a moment to think about that? What are your dreams? Are you chasing them? Do you believe in yourself? Do you have a passion, a hobby, a gift (that’s your talent)? What are you doing with it? This morning reading Oprah’s newsletter I came across her quotables and read this:

“ There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honor your calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.”

I suggest you all write that down as an amazing reminder that you are here with a purpose. Don’t forget that.
As you all may know or don’t, I am an Artist, of many mediums. So many I’ve lost count, I like to challenge myself so I try a little bit of everything. Let’s go back 15 years since I have been in college where I majored in graphic design and that’s what my parents wanted me to do, go find a job in an advertising company, but at the time while I was going to school I was working at a cosmetics store, Cosmetics Plus. That’s where I realized that I had a knack for making the canvas of a face beautiful. So, for four years I worked for many cosmetic lines ie: Chanel, Prescriptives, Lancome, MAC, Decleor putting myself through my own paid beauty school. I learned all the ins & outs of the beauty business which in turn I would come to start my own cosmetic line years later. At that time, that was mydream. I followed it & made it a reality.
I no longer have my company because running a business being a full time mommy of 3 (at the time) and health issues just wore me out. I had to make a decision. I did and I haven’t looked back.
Today I am where I want to be. I am actively pursuing my art career. I design just about everything, custom made illustrations, logo design, killr heels, custom iPhone/ Galaxy Cases etc.
In order to keep myself motivated and pumped, well hello, I get my daily dose of The Indie Chicks and keep up with posts from The Crazy Bitch Society. I am always writing down their quotes in my journal, keeping the positive flow streaming my way is a must for my everyday, because when I feel like I am loosing momentum, I go and read my journal and remember that there is a reason for my existence and just keep taking action towards the realization of my dreams.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was just a vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” – T. E. Lawrence
“My mother said to me, ‘ If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope. ‘ Instead I was a painter, and became Picasso.” –Pablo Picasso
“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.”  -Sarah Ban Breathnach
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” 
-Napoleon Hill
The KEY here is to NEVER give up! No matter how hard it gets, no matter how many people tell you not to. You GO for it. Because, yes you can! Follow your heart, I believe in YOU!
I think we have all heard that term “ You are the creator of your own destiny. “ YOU are!  If you constantly are asking yourself why does this happen to me, playing the victim gets you nowhere. Turn your manner of thinking around, watch and see how many doors begin to open up for you.


I'm Not a Goddamn Cougar


Let's start with a few facts:
-I am 39 and so that makes me just about old enough to be a cougar. And if not a cougar than certainly a puma.
-I do indeed look fabulous for my age and get hit on by younger guys all the time.
-I saw the cougars episode of 30 Rock and the premiere of Cougartown. And for some masochistic reason I also read every silly cougar themed article I come across.

And you know what, I think it's all a big fraud being perpetrated by the media. I think they needed something spicy to write about, to entertain themselves and us. They wanted to balance out all of the sadness and catastrophe of the last few years.

And then some marketing genius saw a picture of Demi and Ashton in the paper and thought - EUREKA, COUGARS.

Now, I'm not doubting that there are some older women who date younger men, or that there are some perfectly happy cougar-cub (lord, I hate that phrase) couples. But there is no new cougar trend emerging in society.

Women, like me, who found younger men tiresome and immature 6 months ago haven't suddenly change their minds. We aren't sitting around and thinking, "Gee, I'd so much rather date a young guy who couldn't possibly relate to my life experiences like some man my own age." No offense to men in their early 20s. I adored them, when I was in my early 20s. Now, not so much.

If there is a slight uptick in women dater younger men it's only because so many of the men in their 40s aren't interested in dating women their own age. They leave us no choice.
So please, the next time you see a hot 40ish year-old woman, please please please don't call her a cougar. While there might be a few of us who like the word and throw it around in jest, the rest of it hate it and can't wait for the next fake trend to emerge. Cyberdating, perhaps?


вторник, 7 мая 2019 г.

Hello...Is There Anybody In There?



On Monday I got the call nobody wants to get.  My grandfather died, Monday morning.

There Is No Pain, You Are Receding

Before 2017, I'd been fairly lucky.  Few people I knew about had died, let alone somebody I was close to.  That changed, when my uncle died.

It was a bad death.  My uncle was never good at dealing with a setback, emotional or professional, and when the company he worked for laid him off, his alcoholism only got worse.  By the time he died, his liver had failed so thoroughly toxins were leaking through his skin.

I cried at my desk, and on the way home, plugged in my iPod.  The first song that played was
Pink Floyd.

A Distant Ship Smoke On the Horizon

I've never been close with my mother's side of the family, including my mother.  This has been the function mostly of the fact that my father, who mostly raised me on his own, and my mother's side have a contentious relationship at best.  The one person, however, who stood behind my father was my grandfather.

Maybe it was because he was a generous man.  Maybe it was because he'd gone through an ugly
divorce of his own.  But regardless, he stood by my father.  I was always grateful for it.  I wish now I'd told him more often.

You Are Only Coming Through In Waves

I'm bad at staying in touch.  Facebook and the like have been a godsend for me to stay in touch with people I've befriended and people I love, simply because I'm not the kind of person who picks up the phone.

As a result, I haven't spoken to anybody in my mother's family in any meaningful way beyond the occasional email for nearly five years.  I take my share of blame for this: like I said, I'm bad at staying in touch.

One thing my grandfather used to do was send newsletters.  These came via snail mail, and they were the cheesiest things you ever saw: laid out on mid-'90s word processing software, but full of details from cousins and other relatives I've barely met. I never replied to those newsletters with a letter of my own.  I think on some level, I thought there was always going to be time, that he was always going to be there.  That, I think, is my biggest regret, that I never put pen to paper.

The Child Is Grown, the Dream Is Gone

I got the call at 6:30pm on Monday, and since then I've been engaged in the frustrating mundanities of grief.  His funeral is Wednesday (I'm writing this early morning Tuesday), and my father and I will be driving twenty hours. We've been asked to attend by the widow, personally, and neither of us can afford the airfare.  Nor can we afford not to be there.

My
girlfriend can't come, although she wants to: we simply have too many pets.  Explaining that and reassuring her she wasn't being a terrible person was the first thing I did.  She packed a bag for me, while I wrote my various markets and told them what was happening.

The horrible irony of funerals and travel is that you can only grieve so much. You may want to be immovable.  But you can't be. You have no choice: you have somewhere to be, and it is vitally important that you get there.

You shut off, for a little while.  You feel the grief there, just under the surface, but you can't acknowledge it.  You simply have to accept that for the moment, what you're feeling has to stay locked away while you find a hotel and arrange the details of a last-minute trip.

And you welcome it, in a way.  To not deal with the flood all at once, but with trickles.  Inevitably, the whole feeling will rush over you.  But not now.

For now, you have become comfortably numb.


понедельник, 6 мая 2019 г.

Booty Calling Someone Before a First Date: Not a Good Idea




Last week, I received a drunk dial on Friday from a guy that I had a first date with on Saturday. Actually, make that two calls. Neither of which I answered. The next night, after waiting for 10 minutes at the designated meeting spot (which also happened to be the corner outside his apartment), I joined my friends for dinner. I received three more phone calls during dinner (which he knew about via text) and one awesome final drunk dial at 2:30 AM, which woke me up when I had an 8:30 AM flight. Now he wonders why I won't "hookah" with him next Saturday.

Oh, by the way, this entire date, besides the initial meeting, was set up via Facebook.
And this is just the latest in a virtual cesspool of technological dating errors. I've also had two Microsoft Outlook dates turninto duds. Years of drunken, college booty calls have caused intimacy and commitment issues I don't know if I'll ever overcome, and my sister is currently in a fight with her boyfriend because she didn't answer her phone for a three-hour period last night. Every night, at least one of my friends exclaims "Oh my God, he's read my BBM!! Why isn't he responding?!" And I have had not one, but two completely unrelated friends, scream at their boyfriends and have their rants transcribed, in real time, on their iphones. They had nowhere to run in the morning.

It's sad, really. Courtship has been reduced to Facebook stalking sessions and drunken booty calls. Instead of a nice message on your voicemail wondering if you'd like to catch a movie, you get a message over the internet that says, "Yo, u look hot. We want to hook up w u cutiez." Even the temptation of an illicit affair has lost its sinful appeal because you can just text six people at the same time on your Sidekick.

I'm not asking for rose petals on the bed and hundred of candles from Hobby Lobby all over the room. In fact, I think that would make me gag. But how about a phone call rather than a text conversation that takes three hours to come to fruition? How about a surprise home-cooked meal? Nothing fancy. I'll like you and you get to eat. Both important to evolutionary success. And let's be honest, that's really what this is all about. So please, shut down your computer, turn off your crackberry, and let's produce some offspring.
----------------------------------------------------
Meet The Author
Hi. I'm Blair. 5' 3', blue eyes, brown hair that really needs to be washed right now. But you can see all that on my Ignighter profile. I guess what you need to know here is that my personality falls into the 'Analysis Paralysis' category. At least, that's why my ex-life coach told me right before I fired her.

Anyways, this means that I will scrutinize and over-analyze everything I see and/ or hear and/ or smell within the young urbanites' dating scene. My theories, rants and questions will wind up here, most of the time with an entertaining story or 5 about one of my friends', or my own, dating sagas (please don't take this as a reason to not date and/or befriend me). I hope you enjoy the ride, and feel free to hop on with questions and comments at any time.

Reprinited from:

пятница, 3 мая 2019 г.

Would You Ask Your Grandma About Sex, Porn and Masturbation?


Neither would we. But lucky for us, the ladies at The Frisky did.

We already know that your grandmother thinks Paris Hilton is a whore. But what does she think about watching porn during sex? Masturbation? (And what is with my fascination with what octogenarians think about sex? That one remains a mystery.)

However, I can tell you what dear old grammy thinks about anal and such. Well, not your grandmother. (I have no affiliation with the Psychic Friends Network.) Nor my own grandmothers. (They both passed away when I was still under the impression that oral sex only took place over the telephone--a notion I held steadfast until preteen-dom. Clearly, I was operating on some serious misinformation about the birds and the bees. Imagine my shock when I uncovered the truth.)

But, for those of us who wouldn't dare speak such dirty, dirty words in the presence of our dear old grandmothers, there is Simcha Whitehill, a blogger at Thesolarbiz.com/. Simcha has boldly gone where few granddaughters have dared to go before: She had "the talk" (and so much more) with her 85-year-old grandma.

For the last few months, Simcha has posted several revealing interviews with her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who recently moved into her 94-year-old boyfriend's New York apartment until winter, when the couple hits up Boca Raton. If you have a few minutes, I certainly suggest giving the Ask Grandma videos a little looksy.

If not for the love and sex advice, which is so wondrously frank, for the moments that are so cringe-worthy, they hearken back to the days when, by some form of cosmic punishment, you first watched a movie sex scene with mom and dad in the family room.
As it turns out, Simcha's grams is pretty shrewd--and not the least bit shy about telling a guy what she wants in the sack. Sounds like my kind of lady. Cue the intro with granny arranging flowers, smearing on some sexy red lipstick, pouring a nice cold glass of Tanqueray and getting comfy for some hard-hitting Q&A.;

Should you trust your heart or your head? Your brain. Should you break up with a guy who is bad in bed? "If that's a question, break up because it's no good," she says. "You would know if it's good or not." Yes, dear grams. We would know, indeed. And we couldn't agree more.

But what if your man watches porn during sex--is that normal? Absolutely. "Watch with him and enjoy it," she says as she turns to her granddaughter. "Were you shocked when I said that?"

Now a foray into the history books: How did women masturbate before vibrators? "I don’t know, but nothing’s wrong with vibrators," she says as she turns to camera, smiles and shrugs. "So what's wrong with this masturbating? That’s an old one--since the world was discovered. Children do it. It’s part of life. Nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about. It’s part of nature."

Well, there you have it. Permission from grandma to masturbate sans guilt until the cows come home. If you've got a burning question that you wouldn't dare spring on your own grams, it seems that Simcha's grandma is still fielding questions. Just don't ask her about anal. This granny dodged the question. Every matriarch has to draw the line somewhere.


Top 5 Ways to Thwart a Period Hookup



What's the best way to tell a guy you have just started dating that you have your period? Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not say anything he might actually interpret as "Hey, dude, I have blood flowing out of my vag."

To equip 20something women everywhere with arsenal ofways in which to communicate our handicap, I bring you 2019's Top 5 Ways to Thrwart Period Hookup... a collection of humorous, hopefully helpful lines that have actually come out of one or another of my friends' mouths.

1. Oozing seduction whisper "I don't think this is a good time." Just don't say this until you've left the bar. Don't want anyone getting confused.
2. Play prude. Just don't do this if you've already had sex. Otherwise, you will be the worst of the worst...an Indian Giver.
3. Convince him your Spanx and rainboots are hot. Refuse to take them off.
4. Just don't say anything and let him find your tampon string. Whoops.
5. "I reeeaaally don't think you want to do that." It brings humor into the situation and could perhaps get you at least a cuddle.
6. Be honest. We can all only hope to be so lucky as my friend, who, upon telling her boyfriend that she has her period, usually receives this response:
"I don't care."


Read More: Mdanderson